Filling Out the Timeline

This post is part 11 of a series about Venus and the Jaredites. To start at the beginning, click here.

The main hypothesis in my Venus-Jaredite model is that Moroni gave us clues to indicate that Late Jaredite military leaders were starting their campaigns against the current ruler on the same day that Venus first rose into the eastern sky as the Morning Star. After applying this hypothesis to the sequence of events in Ether 12-15, we were able to form a 13-year timeline showing when each of these heliacal Venus rises occurred:

DAY	EVENT
-72	Evening star at maximum eastern elongation. Ether is cast out (13:13)
1	A: First morning star rise. Many rise up (13:15)
585	B: Second morning star rise. Shared rises up (13:23)
1169	C: Third morning star rise.
1753	D: Fourth morning star rise. The brother of Shared rises up (14:3)
2337	E: Fifth morning star rise.
2921	F: Sixth morning star rise. Coriantumr comes up to Moron (14:11)
3505	G: Seventh morning star rise. (people still gathering)
4089	H: Eighth morning star rise. (people still gathering)
4673	I: Ninth morning star rise. Coriantumr beheads Shiz. (15:30-31)

In addition to these Morning Star rises and war-starting events, we can pinpoint several other events on the timeline using the information that Moroni provides. And for the most part it only requires simple math… Now there’s a lot to get to here, but it has to be done in order to fully appreciate not only the Venus-Jaredite model, but the intentional details of Moroni’s brilliant abridgment.

Evening Star phases calculations

We can easily calculate when Venus would have been morning and evening star for each cycle. All we have to do is add…  Recall that the morning star phase is 263 days, superior conjunction is 50 days, evening star phase is 263 days, and inferior conjunction is 8 days… Here then are the phases for each cycle in Ether 12-15:

CYCLE	MS	SC	ES	IC
Z	(-583)-(-320)	(-320)-(-270)	(-270)-(-7)	(-7)-1
A	1-264	264-314	314-577	577-585
B	585-848	848-898	898-1161	1161-1169
C	1169-1432	1432-1482	1482-1745	1745-1753
D	1753-2016	2016-2066	2066-2329	2329-2337
E	2337-2600	2600-2650	2650-2913	2913-2921
F	2921-3184	3184-3234	3234-3497	3497-3505
G	3505-3768	3768-3818	3818-4081	4081-4089
H	4089-4352	4352-4402	4402-4665	4665-4673
I	4673-4936	4936-4986	4986-5249	5249-5257

These numbers will come in handy later.

You may have noticed a cycle Z in Table 7. This is the cycle that occurred previous to the first Venus rise at point A. I named it Z to obviously separate it from the main 8 or 9 cycles in which the bulk of events in Ether 12-15 played out. It is during cycle Z that Ether begins prophesying to the people and is cast out.

2 years after Shared’s death

Moroni tells us that Shared dies about 2 years before his brother, Gilead, rises up against Coriantumr (D on the timeline).

And now, after the space of two years, and after the death of Shared, behold, there arose the brother of Shared and he gave battle unto Coriantumr… (Ether 14:3)

This is apparently the same 2-year period Coriantumr uses to rest, as described in Ether 13:30-31–

And Coriantumr gave Shared battle again in the valley of Gilgal, in which he beat Shared and slew him. And Shared wounded Coriantumr in his thigh, that he did not go to battle again for the space of two years, in which time all the people upon the face of the land were shedding blood, and there was none to restrain them. (Ether 13:30-31)

Since we know Gilead rose up 2 years after his brother Shared died, then we can calculate when Coriantumr slew Shared: 1753 – 730 = 1023.

This is actually a pivotal time in the Ether 12-15 timeline, so we will be revisiting it the next post.

2 years gathering forces in the wilderness

After Gilead rises up against Coriantumr, he eventually manages to beat Coriantumr in the wilderness and go on to claim the throne in the land of Moron. As a result of this, Coriantumr spends the next 2 years in the wilderness gathering soldiers to his cause:

3 … there arose the brother of Shared [Gilead] and he gave battle unto Coriantumr, in which Coriantumr did beat him and did pursue him to the wilderness of Akish. 4And it came to pass that the brother of Shared did give battle unto him in the wilderness of Akish; and the battle became exceedingly sore, and many thousands fell by the sword. 5And it came to pass that Coriantumr did lay siege to the wilderness; and the brother of Shared did march forth out of the wilderness by night, and slew a part of the army of Coriantumr, as they were drunken. 6And he came forth to the land of Moron, and placed himself upon the throne of Coriantumr.

7And it came to pass that Coriantumr dwelt with his army in the wilderness for the space of two years, in which he did receive great strength to his army… (Ether 14:3-7)

It is after this 2-year period that Coriantumr comes up to the land of Moron to reclaim his throne (F on the timeline; Ether 14:11). Therefore, we can calculate when Coriantumr began his recruiting stint in the wilderness…. 2921 – 730 = 2191

One weakness of the model to consider is that these dates require the time from Gilead first rising (1753) to the time of Coriantumr losing part of his army in the wilderness (2191) to be 438 days or about 1 year and 2 months. The reason this might be problematic is that for much of this time it appears that Coriantumr was laying siege to Gilead’s army in the wilderness. That’s a long time for Gilead’s large group of men to be out in the wilderness, hunting game for survival. But of course, such a period in the wild is possible, especially for ancient people who knew how to procure food for themselves from nature far better than we do.

Also, that a siege lasting longer than 1 year could actually concur is attested to by multiple historical accounts, including the 30-month siege that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. [1] So, it is definitely possible!

Final battle begins

The final battle began 8 days before Shiz lost his head by the sword of Coriantumr (I on the timeline; Ether 15:30-31).  Therefore, we can calculate the day this last battle started…. 4673 – 8 = 4665

You can read here for a demonstration that the final battle was indeed fought over 8 days, and here about how it may have aligned with an inferior conjunction.

4 years after battle at Ripliancum

As I wrote about before, after fighting their second-to-last battle, the Jaredites took a 4-year hiatus to gather all the people they could:

12 And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether. 13 And it came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who were for Coriantumr were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz were gathered together to the army of Shiz. 14 Wherefore, they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive. (Ether 15:12-14)

Since we know that this period of gathering began 4 years prior to the start of the final battle (which we just determined was on the 4665th day), we can calculate when it started… 4665 – (365 x 4) = 3205

Strongly Calculated Dates

Below is a table of the Ether 12-15 timeline including the dates we’ve calculated above:

DAY	EVENT
-72	Evening star at maximum eastern elongation. Ether is cast out (13:13)12
1	A: First morning star rise. Many rise up (13:15)
585	B: Second morning star rise. Shared rises up (13:23)
1023	Shared dies. Coriantumr begins 2-year resting period. (13:30-31)
1169	C: Third morning star rise.
1753	D: Fourth morning star rise. The brother of Shared rises up (14:3)
2191	Coriantumr begins 2-year recruiting period in wilderness. (14:5-7)
2337	E: Fifth morning star rise.
2921	F: Sixth morning star rise. Coriantumr comes up to Moron (14:11)
3205	Battle at Ripliancum. 4-year gathering period begins. (15:8)
3505	G: Seventh morning star rise. (people still gathering)
4089	H: Eighth morning star rise. (people still gathering)
4665	1st day of inferior conjunction. Final battle begins. (15:15)
4673	I: Ninth morning star rise. Coriantumr beheads Shiz. (15:30-31)

But we’re not done with the timeline just yet. To finish this article, we’ll go through some of the events that are harder to date precisely, but can be done approximately.

A curse comes upon the land

As discussed above, Coriantumr took 2 years off after Shared’s demise. But the fighting didn’t stop when he did. We’re told the whole land was covered in violence during that time:

And Shared wounded Coriantumr in his thigh, that he did not go to battle again for the space of two years, in which time all the people upon the face of the land were shedding blood, and there was none to restrain them. (Ether 13:31)

In an earlier post, we talked about how during these two years 1 heliacal rise of Venus would have occurred–the third Morning Star rise (labeled C in our timeline). Nobody rose up against Coriantumr on that day… however, in the timeline I associate Venus rise C with Ether 14:1-2, and for good reason:

And now there began to be a great curse upon all the land because of the iniquity of the people, in which, if a man should lay his tool or his sword upon his shelf, or upon the place whither he would keep it, behold, upon the morrow, he could not find it, so great was the curse upon the land. Wherefore every man did cleave unto that which was his own, with his hands, and would not borrow neither would he lend; and every man kept the hilt of his sword in his right hand, in the defence of his property and his own life and of his wives and children. (Ether 14:1-2)

I propose that instead of an enemy rising up on this day, a curse did.

The ancient Mayans feared the Morning Star so much, that they would block all the holes (chimneys, windows, etc) in their houses to prevent the light of Chak Ek from entering. Here’s what 16th-century Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún observed about it:

“And when it [Venus] newly emerged, much fear came over them; all were frightened. Everywhere the outlets and openings of [houses] were closed up. It was said that perchance [the light] might bring a cause of sickness, something evil when it came to emerge.”

https://www.science20.com/between_death_and_data/ode_venus-87585

Were the Late Jaredites beginning to view the star in the same way at this point? Note how Moroni describes things IN THEIR HOUSES that they were worried about losing… almost like “something evil” or some mysterious spirit or force could get into their dwelling places and make things disappear. Notice that he mentions these items vanishing from “upon” their ‘shelves’, perhaps implying this curse would rise up to those elevated storage places to claim its spoils.

I think Ether had told them 3 years or so earlier that the Morning Star could bring joy and peace if they repented–but now it was bringing doom, bloodshed, and fear. They should’ve listened to the words of the Lord!

Gilead’s Assassination

After Gilead (the brother of Shared) beat a portion of Coriantumr’s army in the wilderness, he made his way into the land of Moron and placed himself on the throne:

… the brother of Shared did march forth out of the wilderness by night, and slew a part of the army of Coriantumr, as they were drunken. And he came forth to the land of Moron, and placed himself upon the throne of Coriantumr.  (Ether 14:5-6)

But things weren’t happily ever after for the new King Gilead forever. In process of time, Gilead’s high priest seized the opportunity to kill him and take the crown for himself:

Now the brother of Shared, whose name was Gilead, also received great strength to his army, because of secret combinations. And it came to pass that [Gilead’s] high priest murdered him as he sat upon his throne. (Ether 14:9)

I believe the way Moroni wrote Ether 14:9 is a clue that the high priest of Gilead timed his government takeover to coincide with the rising of the morning star.

Generally, thrones are in an elevated position, and apparently so among the Jaredite culture (see Ether 10:6)– you know, “no one sits higher than the king.” Notice that Gilead was murdered while he sat on his throne, meaning that the assassin, like the rising Morning star, had to have risen to throne level to do the deed. It’s a veiled rising, but is a rising nonetheless.

Interestingly, the Mayan elite had “astronomer priests” who could calculate and predict the motions of Venus with great accuracy. [3] My guess is that Gilead’s high priest was in fact an astronomer priest, who knew exactly when Venus would rise again, and therefore timed his betrayal of the king to be on that day. It’s possible he chose a different astronomical event to line his crime up with–we just can’t know for sure. Putting it on the heliacal Venus rise E in our model works well. 

Lib’s coup

The next thing we need to place on the timeline is the date the Lib takes over the government, as described here: 

And it came to pass that one of the secret combinations murdered him [Gilead’s high priest] in a secret pass, and obtained unto himself the kingdom; and his name was Lib; and Lib was a man of great stature, more than any other man among all the people. (Ether 14:10)

The only information that can help us find a date for this is that Moroni tells us that Coriantumr came up to the land of Moron to challenge Lib (F on the timeline) before Lib had completed one full year of being king:

And it came to pass that in the first year of Lib, Coriantumr came up unto the land of Moron, and gave battle unto Lib. (Ether 14:11)

This gives us a finite range of when Lib could have staged his coup. It had to have been less than 365 days before Coriantumr came up, which gives us a 364-day window of possible time when it happened.

Interestingly, 86% of this 364-day timespan was either in the superior conjunction or evening Star phases. It is therefore most likely that Lib’s coup occurred during either of those phases of Venus, and I believe that Moroni left us clues that it indeed was.

First he tells us Lib’s coup happened “in a secret pass.” Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines the word pass as, “A narrow passage, entrance or avenue; a narrow or difficult place of entrance and exit; as a pass between mountains…  A passage; a road.” [4] I can’t think of any better way to keep a road secret and difficult to get to than to put it underground. I think Lib assassinated the high priest in an underground tunnel. This location may be a reflection of the Evening Star, which goes down every night, or of superior conjunction, where the star travels through the underworld for a time. 

Fascinatingly, there have been several secret tunnels uncovered under ancient Mesoamerican pyramids. Since we’ve been comparing the Late Jaredites to the Aztec and Maya in this series, it seems apt to mention their secret passes, some of which were apparently purposefully used to represent the underworld. [5] It’s very possible that the high priest was murdered in such a passageway. 

I think the deadly transaction probably took place on the last night of Superior Conjunction, or rather on the first night that the Evening Star appeared in the western sky. This first appearance was sometimes used for ritualistic sacrifices and starting war by the Mayans. [7] The high priest, probably a paranoid astronomer priest, would have known what day the evening star was going to appear, and so he decided to get around town undetected lest any other ambitious men sought to usurp the throne on that particular night. He must have trusted Lib as a fellow secret combination member, but alas, was betrayed like he had betrayed his former fellow frat brother, Gilead.

The second big clue is that Moroni goes out of his way, on small, hard-to-engrave plates, to tell us that Lib was the tallest Jaredite man of his time. Why would he do that? There is really no point in telling us this unless it has importance to the story… I think he wrote this because, as the tallest man, Lib would have had to strike downward to kill the shorter high priest, mimicking the descending motion of the Evening Star. Interestingly, the secret pass found under the Temple of the Sun in Teotihuacan had walls “carefully impregnated with powdered pyrite, or fool’s gold, to give the effect in firelight of standing under a galaxy of stars.” [8] This feature, some scientists suggest, turned the tunnel into “a symbolic gateway that connected the sky with the underworld.” [9] In such an underground passage, how appropriate would it have been to take on the role of the Evening Star and murder for gain?

Putting all the dates together

Now, incorporating both the precise and approximate/speculative dates calculated above, here is a more full view of the timeline:

DAY	EVENT
-72	Evening star at maximum eastern elongation. Ether is cast out (13:13)12
1	A: First morning star rise. Many rise up (13:15)
585	B: Second morning star rise. Shared rises up (13:23)
1023	Shared dies. Coriantumr begins 2-year resting period. (13:30-31)
1169	C: Third morning star rise. Curse comes upon the land (14:1-2)
1753	D: Fourth morning star rise. The brother of Shared rises up (14:3)
2191	Coriantumr begins 2-year recruiting period in wilderness. (14:5-7)
2337	E: Fifth morning star rise. High priest rises up to murder Gilead. (14:9)
2650	1st day of evening star phase. Lib descends upon the high priest (14:10)
2921	F: Sixth morning star rise. Coriantumr comes up to Moron (14:11)
3205	Battle at Ripliancum. 4-year gathering period begins. (15:8)
3505	G: Seventh morning star rise. (people still gathering)
4089	H: Eighth morning star rise. (people still gathering)
4665	1st day of inferior conjunction. Final battle begins. (15:15)
4673	I: Ninth morning star rise. Coriantumr beheads Shiz. (15:30-31)

And here’s a rough diagram of the timeline showing all 9 heliacal rises:

The Final War

Before we end, I’d like to point out one interesting thing about the Venus-Jaredite model as we have presented it so far: The duration of the final war.

Looking at the dates we have calculated in Table 9, we see that the final war, the Lib-Shiz war, from the time Coriantumr came up to Moron (F on the timeline; Ether 14:11) to the Battle at Ripliancum (day 3205 on the timeline), only lasted for about 9.5 months (3205 – 2921 = 284 days = ~9.5 months).

When I first ran the numbers in this model, I became discouraged because I already knew that the Battle at Ripliancum was the seventh battle of the Lib-Shiz war… meaning that my model was squeezing SEVEN battles into a miniscule period of 284 days. There’s no way they could have done that, I thought, With travel times and whatnot. This appeared to be a giant weakness in the model.

However, I revisited the text of Ether and found this gem of a description thrown in there by Moroni after the third battle of the Lib-Shiz war:

14:22 And so swift and speedy was the war that there was none left to bury the dead, but they did march forth from the shedding of blood to the shedding of blood, leaving the bodies of both men, women, and children strewed upon the face of the land, to become a prey to the worms of the flesh. 

When I read this, I was flabbergasted. SO SWIFT AND SPEEDY was this particular war that they didn’t even have time to bury the dead. They just would march from one battlefield to the next with little wait time in between. One army would pursue the other army; Shiz would destroy entire cities as he ‘swept the land before him’ looking for people to join his army (Ether 14:17-18) as he relentlessly hunted Coriantumr. This final war–which started exactly 8 years after the first Venus rise–truly was when “Shiz hit the fan” for the Jaredites (pun gloriously intended). 

I see this as incredible support for the Venus-Jaredite theory. This model explains perfectly why Moroni would have written about the speed of the war. Indeed, the first 7 battles of the Lib-Shiz war came fast, all nestled between the beginning of the Morning Star phase and the following superior conjunction (an average of about 41 days between battles); and the people weren’t prepared for it. This time period is probably where most of the destruction of Jaredite society actually happened. It’s when their civilization fell apart. Cities were gone; trade networks obliterated; refugees would have been roaming around trying to figure out how to survive. It would have been chaos.

But the strength of the model doesn’t end there. In the next post, we will continue building the Ether 12-15 timeline by determining when, relatively, the first year must have started. And believe me–there’s a lot of information there if you look for it…

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

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Sources and Notes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(587_BC) 
2. https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-did-riplakish-construct-a-beautiful-throne 
3. “Priests were very skilled at math and astronomy. In fact, the Maya was the only pre-telescopic civilization that could track the cycles of Venus and other planets. The Maya knew when an eclipse would occur. With this mastery of celestial cycles, the priests kept close track of the solar and sacred calendars.” https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-maya-priesthood 
4. https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/pass
5. https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/archaeology/secret-passage-to-the-underworld-tunnel-discovered-beneath-mexican-pyramid/news-story/9d65e23f41c2b2f7dc71df9ab0ef2a05; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/discovery-secret-tunnel-mexico-solve-mysteries-teotihuacan-180959070/ (has pic of tunnel diagram); https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/02/world/chichen-itza-maya-tunnel-cenote/index.html
6. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/discovery-secret-tunnel-mexico-solve-mysteries-teotihuacan-180959070/ 
7. “Venus war regalia is seen on stelae and other carvings, and raids and captures were timed by appearances of Venus, particularly as an evening “star”. Warfare related to the movements of Venus was, in fact, well established throughout Mesoamerica.” https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/maya/mmc07eng.html; “Detailed pictorial and hieroglyphic evidence from the Maya site of Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico, demonstrates that a prime time for ritual warfare was at the first appearance of the planet Venus as it emerged from either superior or inferior conjunction as either the Evening or Morning Star. Successful warfare was thought to depend upon the support of the gods of the planet Venus. Mayans usually initiated fighting on the last days of either the superior or inferior conjunction. This timing was important so that the ritual beheading of the captured king could take place in the ritual ball game at the time of the appearance of the planet Venus.” https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/warren/2021-07-12/11_bruce_w._warren_secret_combinations_warfare_and_captive_sacrifice_225-236.pdf
8. “The walls of the tunnel were found to have been carefully impregnated with powdered pyrite, or fool’s gold, to give the effect in firelight of standing under a galaxy of stars.” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/24/teotihuacan-pyramids-treasures-secret-de-young-museum-san-francisco
9. “Pyrite powder covers the walls of the tunnels and chambers, a mineral that reflects the light and shines in the dark. Scientists suggest that the underground network acted as a symbolic gateway that connected the sky with the underworld. Until now, the age of this network remains unknown.” https://www.geoengineer.org/news/the-mysterious-underground-network-of-aztec-pyramids